Out of Grace
by thisbluepeony
Summary: After seven years apart, four friends meet again in the summer of 1985 to remember.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I started this some time go, but forgot all about it until I actually found time to finish it. It's based around Dylan Thomas's beautiful poem Fern Hill, and of course all the poetry involved belongs to him.

* * *

_Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs_

_About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,_

_The night above the dingle starry,_

_Time let me hail and climb_

_Golden in the heydays of his eyes,_

_And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns_

_And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves_

_Trail with daisies and barley_

_Down the rivers of the windfall light._

**- Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill**

**12th July, 1971**

He felt free.

He could hear them behind him now. Their heavy boots thumped the earth of the forest, a medley of sickly cracks and crunches against broken wood the dizzying reminder of what they'd to do his neck if they caught him.

"_Run, run, run_!" bellowed in the distance, and it urged him just that little further, and it made him splutter with laughter as he balled his hands into fists and threw himself forwards with young determination. The blood roared in his head, in his heart, in his legs as they burned and ached and whined, but so far he'd surely run a thousand miles and he wasn't stopping now.

Then his heart skipped, twice, as first his feet, growing ever clumsier, tripped over the snaking trap of an overgrown tree stump, and a hot pain in his ankle burst open when he tried to dart towards his goal too viciously; the rocky edge up ahead that signalled ultimate safety. His pursuers were so close he could hear them, panting like dogs, and for one moment the startling notion that they might actually catch him and grab the back of his t-shirt and pummel him into the ground gripped him, sent sickly jolts of exhilarated fear to the pit of his stomach.

And then he saw it, saw the dip of the creek in the distance, the rope swinging slightly in the breeze, beckoning him to freedom, and just beyond that three figures; one jumping up and down, one crouching with frantic fists, the last waving his hands above his head. They became stuck in their positions like the tiny green soldiers he kept on his windowsill.

He laughed again. He wasn't stopping.

"_Come _on_, Sirius_!"

The young voice met him with the breeze, laced with panicked laughter as it echoed across the creek, and it was that final call that had him jump - one, two, three times - over the remaining hazardous branches and run, _run_, forcing himself to ignore the howling pain shooting from leg to ankle to knee and throwing his body on to the thick rope and kicking from the ground harder than ever he had all spring.

Suddenly he was bird and pterodactyl, vampire and Peter Pan, flying across the gushing water and leering rocks, the wind in his hair, against his face, a welcome sooth to his burning skin. He was free.

He landed with a thud, rolling into the dusty hardness of the gravel, and three bodies threw themselves on top of him. They yelped and grabbed. He could feel hands in his hair, hands on his knees, hands searching his face.

"You did it!" someone was laughing in his ear as they jostled him. "You got it!"

"That was brilliant, totally bloody buggeringly brilliant," gushed another. This voice came slightly shaken as its owner recovered from their hysterics.

"Give them here, give them here!"

"Calm yourself, you mad man!" He grabbed the treasure from his pocket, still panting, and lobbed it at the bespectacled boy standing over him.

Then their laughter died down and he found himself staring up into another pair of eyes, inky brown eyes, amused eyes, proud eyes.

"That was - you were amazing," came the final murmur. "Amazing."

A roar in the distance tore their gaze from one another. He turned to see his potential captors jumping up and down across the sniggering creek, barking their dismay at the rope now firmly encased in his hand, away from them.

"_We'll get you for this, Black! See if we don't_!" came the war cry.

He lay down on his back, surrounded by his friends, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

* * *

**20th July, 1985**

James calls, out of the blue. He pitches an idea to Sirius that leaves him with little opportunity to say no. So at three o'clock in the afternoon, he finds himself driving steadily along the M5 towards Dittisham, The Hollies and service station coffee keeping him awake.

He's been up all night, dealing with sex and adulthood, and he didn't fall into bed until six. Even then it was with a stomach full of gin, and lungs packed with Golden Virginia, and a nameless man snoring messily beside him.

He isn't sure he wants to be doing this but then, he suspects he doesn't have a choice.

In the empty passenger seat - a sorry reminder of James's hopeful "bring whoever you want!" - lie scattered styrofoam cups, four packets of Benson & Hedges, and a 1964 map.

Sirius has been convinced, several times so far, that he's taken a wrong turning, and he's almost ashamed at the amount of relief that peeps its head through his irritation. Because wouldn't that just make the perfect excuse? _Sorry, mate, took a wrong turn, before I knew what was happening I'd ended up in Bristol. No, no, you go on without me. Sorry, I'm sorry. Another time perhaps?_

It's mean. It's also nothing to do with James. Or Peter. Or even Remus. It's to do with himself.

He's a changed person, and it's a change which has taken seven years but it's there, and even if it's subtle he knows the others will notice it. As a seventeen-year-old boy, he could go out of his way to alter himself physically and his friends would notice a slight change in personality when they didn't notice anything else.

Will seven years have numbed their sharp senses? Probably not, Sirius thinks wryly. Probably not.

He drives on with dwindling determination. As the trees around the motorway grow thicker, he's drawn further towards the memory of that day, fourteen years ago, on the warm floor of the forest. It's a picture sharp in his mind, a strange thing really since he has trouble remembering even the tiniest of details these days; names, places, dates. Perhaps because the names, places and dates of adulthood pale in comparison with those he retained as a child.

Or maybe he remembers that day because it was the beginning of the first summer the four of them spent together. It was also his birthday, and it was the day that Moony had called him amazing.

Moony. The name flashes in his mind as vividly as the acid sun up ahead. He blinks. He hasn't thought of that nickname in years. Whenever, if ever, he allows himself to reminisce, it's always...

It strikes him then that, although he remembers the nickname and the specific date, the snap of the branches, the laughing warmth of the sun, the wind as it washed over his face, the certainty that he was flying, he doesn't remember _why_ he was running that day. _Who_ he was running from is clear, because it was always Snape's gang. But their motive behind chasing him like wolves for a dog? The treasure, so lovingly stashed in his pocket and thrust to James upon demand? What was that? The answers are lost to him, and he doesn't mind at all.

He knows he only keeps hold of that memory for two reasons that, somehow, blur into one: the freedom he felt, and the way Moony had looked down at him, eyes bright, afterwards. "Amazing" he'd called him. Amazing.

* * *

Dittisham is quiet when he rolls in at six o'clock that evening. Dittisham has always been quiet, so no change there.

There are more houses, he notices. Pretty ones, but new, in stark contrast to the old. He spots Peter's old house straight away. It's on the outskirts of the village, closest to the forest entrance, the home they'd always set off from on bike rides. It's been painted beige now. Sirius knows Peter's parents must have moved; it had been pink seven years ago, and Mrs Pettigrew would never have allowed it to be anything but while she was living there.

He passes Remus's house next and doesn't linger for too long. The curtains are drawn, but Remus's mother can't still live there.

Driving a little further, he passes by the post office, the old sweet shop and the barber's and then, before turning into James's street, he looks to his left, out of the passenger window, and stops his car right there in the middle of the silent road.

There it is. The old garage; the crumbling, decrepit old garage where they wiled away summer after lazy summer. The old, shitty cars are gone, replaced with brand new models. The walls have been painted a brilliant white. 'Prewetts'' has been replaced with 'Potters'', and 'Motors' remains.

For the first time that day, Sirius smiles. He did it. The clever bastard actually did it. His eyes flicker back to 'Potters'' and for a moment he wonders what happened to Gideon. Then a van appears in the overhead mirror, and he starts up the car again and continues to drive over the silent road that stretches along the sea until he reaches the turn-off for Forest End.

He sees the house as soon as he turns in and begins approaching it slowly. The car pants like an old dog in steady breaths as he cruises along. Number twenty-eight, exactly as he remembers it; shutters framing the windows, red front door, honeysuckle arch. Three cars sit patiently outside already, and he parks up behind the silver Honda Civic he can already guess belongs to Pete.

Then he turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, and sits for a while. He doesn't know if they can see him in there, wondering what he's doing, why he isn't rushing to the door, but he doesn't mind. He needs to wait a little while. He has a feeling he's expected to make this trip many more times in years to come. So for now he can stand to look at number twenty-eight Forest End, with the red door and honeysuckle arch, and have a little wait.

* * *

**12th July, 1978**

"_Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me_!" He heard the pounding of footsteps growing ever nearer as he sang, and with a grin he upped the volume. "_Happy _birth_day_ -"

The red door swung open and Sirius's chest was greeted to three hard thumps, accompanied with four gritted words: "_Dear world's - worst - singer_..."

"_Happy birthday to me_!" Sirius finished with a ring of the bell on his bike, before holding his hands out like a beggar boy. "Present, please. Then you can fuck off back to bed."

James pushed him again so that Sirius's bike moved backwards gently.

"Present? You wish," he scoffed. Upon seeing Sirius's pout, the hazel eyes rolled behind their specs, and James patted the bag slung over his shoulder and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his finger. "No fear! Like I'd risk not getting a spoilt bastard like you a gift. Honestly, anyone would think you didn't have enough junk."

Sirius rode his bike slowly around the Potters' front drive as James unlocked the chain from his own prized crimson Stingray.

"You know me, Jamie boy," he said cheerfully, attempting a few little bunny hops, "I'm like a magpie. I have to hoard _treasures_." He suddenly lunged forward, reaching out to prod James's backpack, attempting to feel what was inside before being batted away like a particularly annoying insect.

"You certainly peck like a bloody bird. Sirius, get _off_! Not 'til we're at Moony's, you _know_ that."

He did know that, but he thought it might have been worth a try anyway.

"Are we going now?" he asked hopefully as James slung a leg over his bike and kicked off from the ground.

"Nope," he replied, "Gid's first. Check on my girl."

Sirius groaned. "But it's my _birth_day -"

"Come on. Just five, ten minutes max. It's only _Gideon_, Sirius. I want to see how he's getting on with Bess!" He rocketed off up the sunny street before Sirius could protest, looking back only once to shout over his shoulder, "Oh, and happy birthday by the way, you great sulky git!"

* * *

The Prewetts lived at the top of Forest End, and Gideon and his twin brother Fabian owned the old garage not a mile away. Their sister, Molly, had had a share in it too but she was nineteen now and she'd just got engaged to the fish and chip shop boy, Arthur, so she wasn't around much anymore.

Truth be told, Sirius and James always thought she was a bit of a bossy cow anyway.

The garage itself wasn't in a pretty state, but Gideon was a fantastic mechanic and Fabian did wicked paintwork and besides, it was the only garage in Dittisham.

A hot and busy day, the two boys wiped the sweat from their brows as they abandoned their bikes outside of the garage - safe in the knowledge that no one would dare nick from them - and made for the entrance.

"Gideon?" James called out, striding through the wide open doors.

They could hear loud rock 'n roll blaring from a transistor and the scream of a drill as the two of them wandered in. The drilling stopped only when a mask was lifted, revealing an oil-smeared face, red hair and a big grin.

"Hello, little marauders," Gideon greeted them, standing with the mask pulled back on to the top of his head.

"'Lo, Gid!" said James. "Where's Bess at?"

Still smiling, Gideon turned and pointed to a shady corner of the garage where the lime green Ford Pinto sat. If cars could look sleepy, Sirius thought, then Bess would be exhausted. James was paying the twins a fortune and she didn't look to have changed at all.

"What was going on with the vibration then?" James wanted to know. He was stroking the side of the car now with a careful hand.

"There was a misfire in one of the cylinders. I replaced the ignition coil, though. Should be good to go again soon."

James looked up, ecstatic.

"Brilliant!" he burbled, before motioning to Sirius with his head. "It's Sirius's birthday today, by the way."

Gideon turned back to Sirius with his hands in the pockets of his grubby overalls.

"Is it?" he said pleasantly. "Happy birthday, Sirius. How old are you now then?"

"Eighteen."

"Eighteen, eh? So what does that mean you can do now? Vote? Gamble? Buy fags?" He paused to waggle his eyebrows. "Check out a strip club?"

Sirius snorted, turning away.

"Fab and I will take you," Gideon offered. "Torquay's the place. _Great_ tit bars in Torquay." He accompanied this with lewd hand gestures that caught James's eye.

"What?" he barked, hurrying back over. "You didn't offer to take _me_ to tit bars in Torquay when I turned eighteen."

"Yes well, Sirius here actually looks his age, four-eyes." He took two gloved fingers and prodded James, hard, on the bridge of his nose, just above his specs. Smirking, he turned back to Sirius. "What say you, boyo?"

"No, thanks."

There was something so _off _about Gideon Prewett. It wasn't that Sirius didn't like him - he could be alright for a laugh, and he did do James's car at cut price - but he was sort of smarmy too. A lot of girls in the village fancied him like mad, as though they didn't notice how he was always _leering_ at people. Or maybe they did and that was the sort of thing they liked. Sirius didn't know. He didn't know much about what girls liked. If red-headed mechanics was what got people going in Dittisham, then so be it. Didn't mean he wanted to go to strip clubs with Gideon.

"Your loss, mate, you'd love it. No? Alright, have a birthday present instead."

He turned and rifled around on the workbench, picking up a few things here and there before dropping them again with a purse of his lips.

"Ah! Here we go!" Gideon turned and pressed something hard and plastic into Sirius's hand. Looking down, he found in his palm a dull red stanley knife. He flicked the catch with his thumb, revealing the sharp blade.

"Cheers," he said, actually rather pleased.

"Yeah, careful though. Sharp as sin, those things." He winked. "Don't want bleeding fingers on top of grazed knees, now do we, little marauder?"

Sirius pocketed the knife and managed a grin for the teasing freckled face.

"It's a cool present, Gid. Thanks."

* * *

"Speech! Speech!"

"I've already given a speech, you daft bastard."

"That wasn't a speech, it was you gushing over Peter's little cakes and things."

"They were good cakes!"

"You were practically sobbing."

"They were _good cakes_."

"Anyway," James went on, flapping a hand, "it's your eighteenth birthday. Multiple speeches required!"

Relaxed against one of four padded floral benches in Remus's summer house, Sirius smiled patiently at James. Then he turned the grin on to Peter and Remus sat opposite as he thought carefully for a moment.

"Hm," he said slowly, swirling the remains of his drink around in its glass bottle. "Well. All I can really say is, it's really been something being in the company of the three of you for the past seven years. We've been through a lot together, lads."

The others grinned back at him. Sirius nodded, inhaling sharply, the mixed scents of fresh smoke and icing and the summery outdoors making his head tingle pleasantly.

"But more than anything," he continued softly, "I'm immensely proud of myself for having managed to put up with three such massive wankers for the best part of a decade."

"I'll drink to that!" Peter slurred, throwing his bottle into the air, as James shoved Sirius hard.

"No, no, no," Sirius laughed, attempting to defend himself from his friend's drunken jabs with his free hand. "In all honesty - _in all honesty_ - this has been the best birthday ever. The absolute best."

To accompany his words, Sirius lifted his bottle into the air whereupon it was promptly clinked with three others. He caught Remus's eye and his smile widened.

"A feast of rare delicacies!" he added, casting a hand over Peter's homemade cakes and the two empty crates of Heineken, smuggled in courtesy of James.

"Ah, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, mate," said James.

"I did! I don't know what I'd do without you lot."

"Didn't your parents have anything planned for you?" Peter asked tactlessly between hiccoughs.

Sirius pulled a face. "They said they'd take me out this weekend. My father had a dinner arranged with a potential business partner tonight that he couldn't possibly have torn himself away from."

"Didn't they get you any presents?" Peter pressed. He ignored, in his drunkenness, the sharp looks he received from James and Remus across from him.

"Money. In the bank. Oh, and a card from Reg."

The others looked at him with varying degrees of sadness, Peter in fact leaning more towards awkwardness. Sirius didn't really mind too much though. His family were well-off, and it wasn't like he ever went without things or that he'd ever received anything sentimental from them before.

The only thought that kept niggling at him though was that it was his eighteenth and, ridiculously, he'd sort of been expecting something tangible from his parents this year. Even some keyring shaped into the number eighteen would have been enough; just something that would have shown they'd thought about the significance of his birthday, rather than transferring more money into his bank account.

"But never mind! You boys got me magnificent presents. I mean, look..." He reached, slightly clumsily, to grab the cake tin sat in the middle of their circle. "Pete, these are fucking delicious, mate. And James, Jamie boy, look! A mini transistor radio! For my bike! Which is just... _brilliant_."

He picked up the small orange box that was currently blaring The Monkees, his fingers gliding over the smooth controls. It was the most expensive present out of all of them, although James wasn't smug. He smiled broadly when Sirius looked at him, but it was free from any priggishness.

"And of course, none of our birthdays would be complete without Moony's music." Grinning, he swapped the radio for the vinyl record placed beside him, twirling _The Hollies' Greatest Hits _between his fingers. "You're determined to convert me, aren't you?"

"I'd say I'm succeeding," Remus replied, lifting his bottle to his lips and nodding towards the radio.

"This is just a radio show. _I _didn't put this 60s junk on," said Sirius, but he smiled to show he was joking because, truth be told, he actually sort of liked 60s junk, and he definitely liked any present Remus got for him.

"I feel sick," Peter suddenly announced, causing the two boys to tear their gaze from one another and look towards Peter who, indeed, had turned an alarming shade of grey.

"Don't chuck up in Remus's summer house, Pete," Sirius warned, though he made no move to stand.

"I wholeheartedly second this," said Remus. "Mum'd have kittens."

"You're a mess, Petey, do you know that?" James said fondly, standing up. "A bloody mess. Come on, let's get you back to the homestead. I need to be getting back, too. It's past midnight, I hadn't realised. My mum'll go spare."

"You're eighteen," Sirius chuckled.

"Yeah, and she's my mum. Come on, Pete lad."

Peter gurgled out his indignation, leaning over and holding his stomach until James took hold of his arms, coaxing him up slowly and wrapping a steady arm around Peter's plump shoulder.

"Mate, honestly, happy birthday," James continued, reaching with his free arm to give Sirius a scrub on the back. He bent to give Remus similar treatment, then stood up straight again. "I'll see you tomorrow. At the match, yeah? Don't be late, either of you." Trudging out of the door, movements awkward with Peter hanging off him like a limpet, James called back, "Can't wait to squash that Malfoy prat's smug, bastarding face!"

Remus and Sirius shared a laugh as the two boys entered out into the warm summer night, stars twinkling their path down the slope of Remus's back garden. They left in their wake the chirping of country crickets, the faint song of evening birds, the trickle of the pond and the low hum of the transistor radio.

"Won't your mum go spare too?" Sirius asked, prodding Remus gently in the side as they turned to face each other.

"She's asleep," Remus told him. He paused, glancing down at his fingers, flexing them. "She's been asleep all day."

"Sorry."

"Yes, well."

Sirius gave him a sad smile, fingers reaching out to rub Remus's shoulder through the thin material of his t-shirt. Tactfully, he turned his attention back to the transistor.

"_I love Jennifer Eccles_," it chirped, "_I know that she loves me_."

"I quite like this one," he said softly, nudging Remus's knee with his own. "But don't tell anyone I told you that."

Remus grinned. "Afraid of denting your gallant reputation?"

"Mm, something like that." Sirius's gaze flicked from Remus's large brown eyes to his chapped lips. He turned to glance out of the French doors but, finding nothing outside bar the grassy hill and the sleeping pond and the large, tilting crack willow, he turned back to Remus with a soft smile. "Hey, come here."

Hands encircled the other boy's narrow waist, and Sirius pulled Remus towards him to drop a gentle kiss on his lips. Pulling back slowly, their gazes glittered.

Remus smiled. "Happy birthday."

He traced a path from Sirius's face, down and around his neck to pull him close again, into another kiss. They sat quite still as their lips moved together slowly in the darkness of the summer house, savouring the sweetness of the icing, the bitterness of the lager, the warmth, the happiness.

_And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns_

_About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,_

_In the sun that is young once only,_

_Time let me play and be_

_Golden in the mercy of his means,_

_And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves_

_Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,_

_And the sabbath rang slowly_

_In the pebbles of the holy streams._


	2. Chapter 2

_All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay_

_Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air_

_And playing, lovely and watery_

_And fire green as grass._

_And nightly under the simple stars_

_As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,_

_All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars_

_Flying with the ricks, and the horses_

_Flashing into the dark._

**20th July, 1985**

The front door opens, and for the first time ever Lily Evans hugs him.

No. Not Lily Evans. Lily Potter, freckles faded and belly huge, long red hair chopped, lips clean of bubblegum pink lipstick. He might as well be meeting a stranger. He hugs back anyway.

"Look at you, Sirius Black," she laughs, giving his shoulder one last rub before pulling back and appraising him with sparkling eyes. "I see you never did get that haircut."

All he can do is smile back and run a hand through the thick, dark hair in question. He's suddenly at a loss for words, dimly aware of the fact that the last time he stood beneath this honeysuckle arch he was hugging his best friend goodbye, fairly safe in the knowledge that Lily would never own this house.

Might as well eat his words now.

"Come in. Everyone's dying to see you," she says, and she pulls away to usher him into the house.

"You look wonderful," he says abruptly.

Lily turns, red hair whipping into her eyes. Her look of surprise dissolves into a soft smile. She does look wonderful; beautiful and glowing. It's hard to believe he'd unflatteringly dubbed her Queen of Hearts at school.

"Come on," she says gently. He steps into the house after her.

Seven years has left it in a state he no longer recognises. The medallion carpet has been replaced with stripped floorboards, the horizontal banisters on the stairs returned to their former Victorian glory, and he realises, with a hard lump forming in his throat, that the photographs on the walls are of people he no longer recognises. And the walls...

He lifts his head, touches his fingertips lightly to the smooth cream blankness beside him. Lily doesn't seem to notice. She's already bustling into the lounge with the obvious assumption that he is following. And he does, with one last glance at the unfamiliar corridor.

The three of them are in the lounge, and it's with a throbbing heart and a slowly burgeoning smile that he faces them.

It's James who embraces him first. He lunges up from an armchair, striding towards him in two wide steps and wrapping his arms tight around him, and when James claps him on the back, Sirius clings.

His eyes close of their own accord, breathing in the scent he never realised had been so familiar, something that hasn't been masked like the decor of the house they wiled away their summers in. He's suddenly weak at the contact. Brotherly love stirs low in his belly, and his anxieties are momentarily cleared from his mind as they hug.

"It's so good to see you," James keeps saying, "you haven't changed a bit."

God, hasn't he? That's a scary thought.

James has changed loads, and yet the voice in Sirius's ear still sounds very much like the eighteen-year-old boy telling him goodbye, and when they part he sees James's face for the first time, and he's grown _handsome_, but he's also still wearing his glasses, and his hair still sticks up at the back, and if they hadn't spent seven years apart Sirius would feel comfortable enough to laugh.

Peter's next. He's got fat, but he's also got a wife judging by the ring jammed on to his finger, and Sirius is surprised how happy he is for the boy. The man. Peter has become a man.

"A chef," he burbles, " in my own restaurant!"

"That's fantastic, Pete," Sirius tells him, meaning it. By now he really is smiling as Peter steps away, and the last two pairs of unintroduced eyes in the room land on one another.

Seven years has left Remus thin and obviously poor and beautiful.

They lean in for the obligatory hug, awkward when they both make to embrace in the same direction. It's only when they have their arms wrapped around one another that Sirius feels the weight of emotion plummeting from head to foot, knees almost giving out with the strange sensations their lacklustre hug evokes.

Unlike James, Remus's scent has changed. It's no longer the sweet, sugary warmth Sirius remembers. It's soapy, almost clinical. Not unpleasant, but not particularly memorable either, and it makes Sirius shudder with an emotion he hadn't expected; disappointment, perhaps.

They pull away rather quickly.

"You look..." Sirius trails off, staring into large hazel eyes that haven't changed a bit, even if the bags beneath them are purpler than he ever knew.

Remus waits. When it's clear Sirius isn't going to continue he gives a soft suggestion: "Dreadful?"

Wordlessly, Sirius shakes his head. The only word he can think to say is on his lips, but it never quite manages to spill over, and the air hangs thick between them with memories and soapy skin, until James clears his throat.

"It's a beautiful day," he says. "How about we go in the garden?"

"Is the pool still there?" Sirius asks after a moment. His gaze is still fixed on Remus. He's vaguely aware of James laughing, though it does little to quell the thunderstorms in Sirius's stomach as he stares into those wise eyes for the first time in seven years.

* * *

**19th July, 1978**

"So what do you think?" asked James, swiping a hand across his forehead. He was still clutching the glue brush, and clear globs of paste smeared on to his head.

Beside him, Sirius nodded. He placed his hands on hips as he stared up at the orange, shell-patterned wallpaper.

"I think we've done a pretty good job!" he said proudly, yelping when James swatted at him with the brush.

"Not the wallpaper, you prat. I already know that looks horrendous. I mean the _dance_."

"Oh. Well Evans isn't going to go with you." This earned him another swat. "Ouch! Will you stop doing that?"

"How do you know she won't go with me?"

"I heard she's going with the vicar's son."

James waved a dismissive hand. He dumped the brush in the bucket by his feet and wiped his fingers on his t-shirt.

"Irrelevant," he said, "I can fob him off in no time."

"How?"

"Dunno yet. Maybe a good beating?"

He smiled to show he was joking, but where Lily Evans was concerned Sirius could never be sure. James would go to any lengths to get the wretched girl, as proven by the fact that he'd been chasing her for the past five years.

Still, Sirius wasn't opposed to beating up the vicar's boy if James wanted to. Pompous little wanker if ever there was one in the village of Dittisham, that lad.

"She _will_ go with me anyway," said James, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "And then we'll be going with each other properly. Finally. Then we'll get married, have a batch of kids, and I'll make you godfather so you can feel guilty every time you look at them."

"Cheers," said Sirius.

"Perhaps you could go with one of her mates," James suggested casually, thumbing at a bit of the wallpaper that had risen.

Sirius's head snapped round to face him. "What?"

"That Mary girl's alright. And Emmeline, she'd probably say yes."

Sirius snorted, shaking his head. "No, thanks."

"Why not? It'd be like a, you know, double date thing."

"A double date?" Sirius echoed, voice dripping with disgust. "What bird magazine d'you read that in?"

"No bird magazine!" James blustered.

"I'm not going to any sodding village dance. I can think of a thousand and one things I'd rather be doing."

"Like?"

"Watching this wallpaper glue dry would be top of the list."

James sighed. "You've got to go, Sirius. People will think you're... funny."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I just mean everyone's going."

"I bet Moony isn't going."

"Bet he is."

"And Pete too, I suppose?"

"Already asked Lucy Cimmons from the baker's shop."

"She's two years older than him!"

"Yeah, and ugly as sin. What d'you expect?" James looked at him, grinning, but the look of mirth promptly vanished from his face as he sighed again. "Be a mate. I might not get another chance to win Lily over before I go to university."

At the mention of his friends' end-of-summer destinations, Sirius felt a dull pang in the pit of his stomach.

"Yeah well," he said hoarsely, "that's what you get for swanning off to London."

Their eyes met and they shared a strange, sad smile, interrupted only by a crackling noise as a strip of bright orange wallpaper peeled away from the wall and fell on their heads.

* * *

**20th July, 1985**

"Lucy and I set up home in Waddeton. Beautiful place," Peter tells them. He's clutching a gin and tonic, face crimson with joy. "Sold the bakery, bought a little bistro.

"A bistro, eh?" James chuckles. "Careful, Pete, you're getting a bit too technical for us village boys."

Watching the other man from his chair in the warmth of the sun-dappled back garden, Sirius expects Peter to blush or shut up then. But he doesn't. He laughs back, shaking his head, wagging a finger at James.

"Nothing technical about my cooking, James. Just good, honest food. You'll all have to come some time, have a meal on me."

"Remember the stuff you used to make for us in Food Tech?" says Sirius.

"Oh those cakes," James sighs, "those bloody cakes. It's a wonder we weren't all battling heart disease by the end of that summer."

Peter laughs again. It's a weird sound on his lips, one that Sirius doesn't ever remember hearing.

"Ah, well, my Lucy handles the baking now." He pats his stomach good-naturedly. "As you can probably tell."

"Did mistake you for Lily more than once," Sirius tells him.

A short-lived guffaw goes up around the circle like a flame, dying down barely a moment after it starts.

"Speaking of Lily," Peter continues, leaning forward in his chair, "it really is fantastic news, James."

"Wonderful," Remus agrees gently, and Sirius turns to look at him, surprised. It's the first time Remus has spoken since they came outside.

Across from them, James beams with pride.

"You know, it's funny," he chuckles. "I was stood in the hallway with Lily before, waiting for you all, and I was thinking back to that day, you know, when we did that hideous wallpapering, Sirius?" He laughs again. "Remember you told me Lily wouldn't even go to the Dittisham Village Dance with me?"

Sirius feigns ignorance. "Vaguely," he mutters with a little smile. He remembers every detail, even the places where the wallpaper bubbled.

"That was a strange day," James finishes.

Peter's brow furrows. "The day you wallpapered the hallway? Wasn't that - ?" He turns to look at Remus, voice breaking off as guilt seeps into his face.

Remus doesn't seem to mind. He nods and sips his drink thoughtfully. "It was," he says.

"That was an odd day," Sirius murmurs.

Then, in an obvious attempt at lightening the mood, James leans forward and laughs, "What day of ours _wasn't_ odd? There was always something bizarre going on."

Saying that, he doesn't actually come up with any examples and the four of them slip back into warm silence, the crickets beginning to chirp behind them in the early evening sun.

The garden has changed too; where once grew tall grass and wild flowers, a makeshift pool in the far corner, a grubby set of goalposts in the other, there is now neat, artificial lawn, beds of begonias and hanging baskets of sweet potato vine. Lily's doing, definitely.

Sirius isn't sure how he feels about it. When no one else speaks, he digs in his pocket, produces a cigarette and proceeds to light it, ignoring Remus's gentle look of surprise.

* * *

**19th July, 1978**

"Please," Sirius breathed, pressing one more bruising kiss to Remus's lips. Arousal surged through his teenaged body in hot bursts, coiling tight in the pit of his stomach as he rocked wantonly against the boy beneath him. It was a battle in itself to keep from ripping Remus's clothes from his body then and there.

But it was the perfect moment, he thought. Remus's mother was actually out for once, off somewhere with her sister, gone for the day. They were alone, free to make as much noise as possible, no danger of anyone walking in. Remus had been talking all summer about the 'right time' - _the right time, Sirius, has to be the right time, not just as and when _- and in that moment, hard and throbbing beneath his jeans as their bodies meshed on Remus's bedroom floor, Sirius didn't think the time could have been _more_ right.

And when Remus spoke back the words were laced with a groan of his own, creating that familiar clash of desire and refusal in his voice.

"No... Sirius. Stop."

Sirius's hand was sliding between their bodies, moving towards Remus's waist, fingers seeking the zipper on his jeans. A hand suddenly stopped him.

"Wait," Remus managed, "what - which bit?"

"Just my hand."

With a gulp, Remus nodded. He let go of Sirius's wrist and lay back down on the carpeted floor. Sirius licked his lips and lowered his head so they were kissing again as his hand worked the fly on Remus's jeans with expert ease. His fingers were deft, used to this by now, and eager as they sought out the familiar silken skin.

It was with a groan of protest that Sirius realised he was being interrupted again.

"_What_?" he huffed. His hand still lingered between their tightly-pressed bodies.

Remus hauled himself up on to his elbows. "I want - I want to try something and I... well."

"What do you want to try?"

Fresh excitement began to bubble low in Sirius's body, heat spreading through his limbs at the thought of what Remus might have in mind. His immediate thought was that, after months of fumbling touches and long, torturous hours of kissing, it had ceased to be a matter of 'as and when'.

Slowly, silently, Remus began to sit up, leaning over until Sirius was the one spread out on his back. There was something digging into Sirius's shoulder blade - a small plastic aeroplane, he realised, upon grabbing it from underneath him - and he tossed it away carelessly as he pulled Remus in for a kiss.

"What is it?" he asked again when they broke apart.

"It's..." Remus paused. "Just lie back."

Sirius obeyed. He watched in stunned silence as Remus's long-limbed body eased its way back down him. Their eyes briefly locked as he began fumbling with Sirius's zipper, and a quiet moan of realisation eased its way out from Sirius's throat.

He felt the cool air of the bedroom hit his legs as his jeans were tugged down, body already shaking with anticipation, and when a hand palmed him roughly through his underwear he huffed out an astonished breath, transfixed by the sight of Remus's head being level with his crotch.

"Remus..."

Taking the word as a cue, Remus eased the underwear down and took Sirius in his hand. His palm was hot, and slightly damp with sweat from the two of them laying in the path of sunlight seeping through the bedroom window.

"You're so hard," he observed in a mutter, his tone far too conversational.

"'Cos you're so fantastic," Sirius managed, and he smiled when he heard Remus chuckle.

He lay there, completely incapable of movement as Remus lowered his head to give a tentative lick. It was a nervous touch, light as an anxious feather, and still it startled a gasp from deep within Sirius's throat. He felt hot breaths begin to ghost over his skin, and then warm lips were slowly, slowly stretching around him.

A hot burst of sensation flooded Sirius's body.

"Oh God," he ground out. He scrabbled around for something to hold on to and came up with nothing but another plastic aeroplane. It was just as the warm, wet, foreign bliss began to sink downwards that Remus stopped, pulling back with an inexpert graze of teeth that made Sirius hiss.

"It's... it's bigger in my mouth than in my hand," came Remus's gravelly whisper.

"Don't stop," Sirius pleaded. His hips strained forward, seeking the lush, wet heat once more, and he gave a satisfied, guttural groan when Remus carefully took him into his mouth again.

He was drowning in sensation, in hot bliss, as Remus moved his head slowly up and down. His movements were awkward at first, but eventually he seemed to find a kind of steady rhythm to yoke Sirius's jarred, irregular breaths. Running a hand up beneath his t-shirt, Sirius slid his palm over his quickly tightening abdomen as Remus suddenly seemed to discover the usefulness of his tongue, tentative fingers making tentative guesses.

"_Christ_." Sirius reached a hand up to steady himself on the desk behind him so he could look at Remus properly, the red, swollen lips stretched perfectly around him. He wasn't given long to take in the view; short, frenzied moments passed before the steadily building pleasure in Sirius's belly reached breaking point, his toes curling against Remus's blue shag-pile carpet.

"It's... oh God, I'm - I'm nearly there."

Hearing the words grating from Sirius's throat, Remus promptly removed his soft, wet lips, re-attaching his hand instead. He glanced up, darkened eyes shaded by golden tendrils of hair, sweaty with summer and arousal, and it was their stormy gazes locking that wrenched a moan from Sirius's throat as he arched up into the frantic hand, swallowing convulsively, and coming with a cry all over the long, expert fingers.

"Fuck. _Fuck_," he gasped, still bucking into the slick heat of Remus's hand. He surged up one last time before slumping back against the floor; hot, panting, spent.

It seemed to be a long time before he caught his breath. He thought he felt Remus crawling back up his body. He only knew for sure when an arm draped itself over his heaving chest.

"I didn't know," Sirius panted, "I didn't know you could do that."

"I dunno. I don't think I did it completely right," Remus admitted.

"Felt incredible to me," said Sirius, and when Remus gave a gentle laugh he laughed too, giddy and exultant. His limbs grew heavy, body completely and utterly relaxed against the plush warmth of the carpet. "How did you know how to do it?"

"Don't you remember Simon in History last term, giving that blow-by-blow account about him and that girl Carrie in the year below? I just thought, you know, if birds can do it..."

"Did you really want to?"

At this, Remus actually went a bit red. "Yeah," he muttered, "course."

Sirius grinned, pleased. He curved an arm around Remus's neck to tug him closer, pressing a kiss to his nose. Then his chin, then his jaw, and then he leaned in to nibble lightly at the tender, slightly salty skin of Remus's neck.

"Think we're getting good at this," he murmured.

"Hm?"

"I think we should plan something."

He moved his free hand back down to curl around the hardness in Remus's jeans, and Sirius watched as a pink tongue darted out to wet lips, lips that had just moments ago been wrapped around him.

"Like what?" Remus asked.

"Well, everyone's going to that daft village dance in a couple of weeks. Be the perfect time, don't you think?" Sirius pressed his nose against the sharp jut of Remus's collarbone, lips brushing the material of his t-shirt.

"What, like, you do the same to me?"

"No," said Sirius, as though it were obvious. "I'll have a go at that in a minute. Then maybe we'll be ready to... well, my parents are in Prague that weekend. Reg'll be at the dance."

"I'm not... I don't know if -"

The shrill call of the telephone in the hall beyond the bedroom cut Remus off and, ignoring Sirius's sigh of impatience, he hauled himself up and hurried from the room to answer it in time. It wasn't a surprise really. They both knew it was important he answered calls when his mother wasn't home in case it was about the woman herself.

Sirius sat up to fasten his jeans, irritated by the interruption. Not that Remus's mouth hadn't been totally wonderful, better than anything he'd read in the vintage magazines salvaged from his uncle's loft, but he thought they might actually have been getting somewhere -

Remus's pale face appeared in the doorway. Sirius stared at him.

"What is it?" he asked after a moment of silence.

Trembling, Remus licked his lips.

"It's my mum, she... they've had to take her into hospital again."

* * *

**20th July, 1985**

"You bought the garage then," Sirius says, toying with the food on his plate. He's sure it's great, judging by the way the others are digging in, but he hasn't been properly hungry in days now. He'd really rather just smoke, though he has a feeling Lily might object to that. She has been cooking at eight months pregnant, after all.

"You saw," James grins at the head of the table. "Yep. Best six grand I ever spent."

"Six thousand?" says Remus. "Prewetts must have been desperate."

"Oh they were. Didn't you hear? Their parents died, Molly and Arthur moved further out into the country. Got seven sprogs of their own now."

"Bloody hell," Sirius says mildly. "What about the two lads?"

He says 'two lads' as though that's all they ever were to him, as though he couldn't remember their names from the hazy fog of the past even if he tried.

"Not a clue, mate. Stuck the garage up for sale, packed up and took off. Never heard from them again." James pauses to wash his steak down with the sweet white wine Peter brought. "Not that I wanted to. Funny those two, weren't they? I mean they were alright, just a bit... off."

The dinner table seems to have eased the four men into comfort, initial awkwardness mostly forgotten with the flow of wine, and now they can all murmur their agreement with no reservations. Sirius especially raises his eyebrows in concurrence. He gulps down a second glass of wine, pours another and ignores the unreadable expression Remus is facing him with across the table. He wishes they hadn't been seated opposite one another; it makes it difficult to look anywhere but his plate.

"So what about you anyway, Remus?" James continues. "You never actually said what you ended up doing."

"Oh, this and that. I'm teaching at the moment." A teasing whistle goes up around the table and Remus laughs. "Don't get too excited. It's night classes. Essentially all adults who never managed to get their maths GCE. Before that I worked in a few shops. And before that, well, you know where I was."

James smiles. "How did university treat you?"

Sirius doesn't miss the way Remus scratches uncomfortably at his collarbone.

"It was good," he says eventually. "Not what I expected, but a worthwhile experience."

Their eyes meet across the table, and Sirius suddenly wants to leave very badly. His chest is tight, how it gets when he has to force a yawn to breathe, and he needs a cigarette to open him up. He's somehow certain that Remus isn't being fair, though how exactly Sirius isn't sure.

"University was one of the best times of my life," James is saying in the background, and then he says something else and Sirius becomes aware that his attention is required. At the repeat of his name, he finally tears his gaze away from Remus. He realises that James is staring at him. They all are.

Sirius fixes an easy smile on his face. "Sorry, mate, what was that?"

"Just... wondered what you ended up doing." James looks a bit flustered now, and Sirius wants to kick himself.

"Oh God," he says, barking out a short laugh, "let's see. You know right now I'm doing bar work. Before that was the job at the bookmakers. Ah, short stint at a petrol station, another bar before that..." He squints, pretending the memories are difficult to recall. "Then I think was the record shop, and before that, right after you lot left, I ran away to London and worked the bar at my uncle's queer club." He finishes by gulping down his third glass of wine, setting it down on the table like a shot glass. "And that's it really. Oh! I tell a lie - did a couple of months at Brighton pier operating the ferris wheel when I was nineteen." He sucks in a sharp breath. "That was a good summer."

They're staring at him again. It's Peter who looks away first, clearing his throat. Then Remus. Then, finally, James.

"Don't mind if I go for a fag, do you, lads?" Sirius asks, already standing up. James murmurs something in response when Sirius is already halfway to the French doors that used to be sunshine yellow.

_And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white_

_With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all_

_Shining, it was Adam and maiden,_

_The sky gathered again_

_And the sun grew round that very day._

_So it must have been after the birth of the simple light_

_In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm_

_Out of the whinnying green stable_

_On to the fields of praise._


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings:** Mild sexual content, dubious consent

* * *

_And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house_

_Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,_

_In the sun born over and over,_

_I ran my heedless ways,_

_My wishes raced through the house high hay_

_And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows_

_In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs_

_Before the children green and golden_

_Follow him out of grace._

**23rd July, 1978**

"How's your mum now, Remus?"

The question broke the long, comfortable silence as the four of them sat before the creek, tossing pebbles into the gushing waters below.

"She's alright," Remus said quietly. He turned to James with a little smile. "Should be out in a day or so. They just need to do a biopsy."

"A biop-what?" said Peter.

"Just a test on her liver," Remus shrugged. He met Sirius's gaze across Peter, before turning back to the water.

It wasn't enough for tactless Peter though, who'd always had some kind of grim fascination with illness.

"Do they have to touch it?" he asked.

"What?"

"The liver. Do they touch it?"

He looked genuinely curious, eyes wide in his pudgy face, until Sirius gave him a short jab.

"Shut it, Pete."

"What? I'm only ask - "

"Well don't!"

But Remus - patient Remus - merely turned to Peter and smiled. "It's alright, Peter."

Silence hung between them for a few moments as Sirius continued to glare, until James piped up in an obvious attempt at changing the subject: "Guess what, lads? I reckon my Bess'll be done in a week or so. Thinking I might escort us all to the dance on Friday, eh?"

"_All_ of us?" said Peter, sniffing doubtfully.

"Well, no, you and Cimmons'll have to catch the bus, I'm afraid. Or walk, it'd do you both some good," James said meanly, sniggering. "Bess has three seats in the back but I'm sure four would fit. All the birds worth asking in this village are like wafers anyway."

Sirius gave a derisive snort. "I told you, Remus and I aren't going to any twatty village dance. Are we, Moony?"

"Why not?" asked Peter, before Remus could even open his mouth.

Tossing a particularly jagged pebble into the depths of the creek, Sirius looked at him. "Because," he said, "it'll be fucking tacky and boring, all these birds done up in awful dresses with gunk plastered all over their faces."

"They won't look awful!" said James. "They'll look top. You might actually manage to get off with one for once." Their eyes locked across Remus, and James gave a sudden twist of laughter. "Or don't you want to? Mate, if you're not careful people are gonna think you're a right queer."

His laughter was cut short when Sirius shot him a sharp look. Remus tensed beside him.

"Why?" Sirius demanded. "Because I don't fancy spending my night in the shit village hall, getting drunk off cider lollies with some slag draped all over me?"

James blinked, alarmed. Quickly gathering himself, he narrowed his eyes. "Didn't say that, did I? But if you keep talking about girls that way, what are people supposed to think?"

"I don't really care what other people think."

"I wasn't going to say anything, but I suppose if you _don't_ care..." James's confident front faltered slightly.

"What?" Sirius snapped.

"When I went in the garage this morning Fabian and Gid were saying how they think you're proper _bent_."

Suddenly seething, Sirius lunged forward. "I couldn't care less what those two say."

"A normal bloke would."

"Oh fuck off, James," Sirius spat. He wrenched himself up on to his feet and turned, ignoring Remus's call of his name as he pounded down the rocky slope and trudged off into the woods.

He was halfway through the gravelly copse when footsteps sounded behind him, and then Remus was stumbling down the slopes too, panting slightly as he stopped Sirius with a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't wander off," he pleaded breathlessly.

"He's been pissing me off all summer saying things like that!" Sirius snapped, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket and rooting for the stanley knife. He kicked at a nearby tree with the toe of his boot, crumbling bark, and then shoved the knife in the heart of the trunk. "Why can't he just give it a rest?"

"You know what he's like," said Remus, as though that were a proper answer.

"Do I? I'm pretty sure he used to be my best mate, not a total prick. He's been on my back all summer so far."

"You know that's not true. You're just angry."

"He won't stop yapping on about this _dance_."

"Why does it bother you so much?"

Sirius hesitated, dragging the knife down in jagged lines. "Because... I feel like he should know. About you and me, I mean." He gestured between their bodies. "It's weird keeping stuff from him."

"You can't tell him," Remus said quickly.

"I didn't say I was going to, did I?" said Sirius, a little more harshly then he'd intended. "Anyway... you don't think he already knows, do you?"

Remus visibly paled. "How could he?"

"Well _I_ don't know. He keeps _mentioning_ queer stuff. Has he said anything to you?"

Wordlessly, Remus shook his head.

"Well, alright then," said Sirius. Weirdly, he found himself feeling sort of disappointed. He suddenly pocketed the knife and slung an affectionate arm around Remus and began to walk them down the remainder of the sloping path, footsteps crunching. "Anyway, forget about that," he said, forcing a smile. "Let's plan _our_ Friday."

They'd only taken a couple of steps before Remus went still, stopping beneath a large, twisted chestnut. "What about it?" he asked quietly.

"You remember. I told you on Wednesday."

"Wednesday was something of a hectic day for me. Forgive me if I don't remember the exact details of our conversation that morning."

"Sorry," said Sirius. He reached out to brush Remus's bare arm. "Just... my parents are away Friday, that business in Prague? I thought we could maybe stay at mine." He bit his lip, fixing Remus with a hopeful expression, but it became confused when the boy wouldn't even look at him.

Eventually, Remus sighed. "It's... I can't."

"Why not?"

"I just don't think it's a very good idea."

Disappointment plummeted to the pit of Sirius's stomach.

"We've been talking about it for ages though. It's the perfect opportunity. They'll be gone 'til morning, it'll just be you and me. We can - "

"I've sort of already asked someone to the dance."

The words came out in a jumbled rush, and Sirius had to ask him to say it again. When he did, Sirius went very still and blinked and swallowed.

"Who?" he finally asked.

"Mary. From 13A? I think she's in your Geometry class."

"Mary from 13A," Sirius echoed flatly, "you think she's in my Geometry class."

"Don't start."

"Hm?"

"I can tell you're going to."

"Me? As if." Sirius laughed. "How could I get angry? You're taking Mary from 13A to the village dance. You think she's in my Geometry class - "

"Sirius!"

"Well fuck, Remus, what the hell are you playing at?"

He grabbed Remus by the shoulders, not quite shaking him, but Remus shoved him back anyway.

"I'm sorry, alright?" he said. "But what did you want me to do? Take you?"

"I wanted you to not go at all!"

"Fucking hell, Sirius, it's just a village dance."

"It's not though, is it? It's our last summer, it's..." He struggled to find the words. "And none of you care. Why don't any of you care?"

"Don't let's get worked up," Remus pleaded. "We have a month left. It's just one night. My mother wanted - "

"Your mother," Sirius cut him off stonily. "Well if _Mummy_ wanted you to take a nice _girl_ to the dance then - "

"Oh, fuck you, Sirius!"

"Then take _Mary_ to the dance. I hope you make it with _Mary_. I hope you fucking shag her!"

He turned and stomped off into the heart of the woods, and this time Remus didn't follow.

* * *

**20th July, 1985**

"So who turned you on to smoking?" James asks, sliding the French doors shut behind him.

Sirius exhales slowly, fresh smoke dancing in the early evening sun. "Gideon Prewett," he says behind a bitter smile. "I remember the exact moment I put one of these little death sticks between my lips."

"You're health-conscious these days?"

"I meant financially. I don't really have pockets deep enough to feed a habit but..." He turns to James and offers him a lazy grin. "Fuck me, they're good."

James smiles back. "I missed you, you know."

"I know."

"I was thinking..."

"Careful."

James bats him on the arm and moves to stand next to him properly. The two of them lean against the wall of the house, brotherly and calm.

"I said before I was thinking about that day we wallpapered the hall. About how you said Lily would never go to the dance with me."

Sirius stays quiet and finishes his cigarette.

"In truth, mate, I've been thinking about that day a lot recently. That's partly the reason I asked you to come here."

"Well, Mr. Potter," Sirius says gently, "I must say I'm intrigued."

James gives a low chuckle. "That day I said I'd prove you wrong, do you remember?" he says. "You probably don't remember. I don't know why I do. I said I'd marry Lily. I said we'd have a whole host of kids, and that I'd make you their godfather. Sirius, I'm... it's a boy."

Sirius turns to look at him, the smile tugging at his lips following a beat later. "That's amazing."

"I'm getting a little boy." A huge grin is suddenly on James's face, and for a second he looks seventeen again. "Please be his godfather."

"You don't want me, James."

"You're my best friend. Seven years hasn't changed that. Not for me, at least."

"Nor me."

"Then come back to Dittisham. You don't have a career, you don't have a... a family?"

"No."

"And London prices are sky-rocketing. You said yourself you don't have pockets deep enough." James sighs and turns back to the friendly garden laid out before them. "We're not city boys, Sirius."

"We said we'd leave. We said we'd get out."

"Why though?" James shakes his head. "It's so beautiful here. I don't think we ever realised how much. To us it was just fields and water." He scratches his nose with his thumbnail. "Trees to throw darts at."

"It's too enclosed. Everyone knows you. Everything you do you trail around in the mud after you forever. Every mistake you make."

"What did we ever do that was so wrong?" James smiles. "We were kids. If my son has a childhood half as good as ours here, I'll be happy. _We_ were happy, I think. Those summers..."

"Yes," Sirius says wryly. "We were very wise, and invincible."

They watch the garden with peaceful ease. The thick scent of orange blossom from Lily's flower beds carries with the warm evening breeze, but above it dances a ribbon of something else; damp and earthy and wild. Sirius wonders if James's son will play football in this garden, or if Lily will fight for the flower beds. If he'll go swimming in the sea until fish with empty eye sockets nudge his toes, or if he'll climb the twisted chestnut in the woods and carve swear words in its trunk with a stanley knife. Will he play at the garage while James sells cars? Will he climb on the roof and stare at the moon like Remus?

"I think it's hard living here," he says after a while. "I think if you grow up here, you'll compare everything in the outside world to it forever. Dittisham is like... like a bubble. If you meet someone in it and then leave, you'll never get back in again. You'll never find them again. If you'd left..." He hesitates. "You'd have been looking for Lily forever."

"But you _can_ come back," James says gently.

Sirius considers the emotions flitting across his best friend's face. "Remus and I..." he starts.

"I know," says James. He looks at him. "I knew."

"You never said."

"I was eighteen. Things are different now."

Sirius scoffs. "Do people _really_ change that much in seven years?"

James shrugs, and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his finger. "Some of us," he says, "I suppose."

* * *

**4th August, 1978**

Lily Evans was coming towards Sirius in a pink pinafore-style dress, hair piled up on top of her head. Her face was painted like the Russian dolls his uncle kept on his mantel piece.

"Off to the dance then, Evans?" he called, stopping his bike in the street.

"Oh no, Black," she trilled back, "I tend to frequent the supemarket in this attire."

He laughed and rolled back a little as she approached. Then she was marching past him, and he turned his bike and cruised along the road beside her.

"Who are you going with?"

"Colin Lewis," she said, "the vicar's boy. You _know_ that."

"You should be going with James."

She stopped in the street and turned to look at him. The expression on her glamorous face seemed to be caught halfway between frustration and amusement.

"And who are you going with?" she asked.

"I'm not going."

"Your friends are."

"And I hope they have a whale of a time." He started to back up his bike to turn around, already bored of badgering Lily Evans. She started to speak again.

"You need a haircut."

He looked at her, unimpressed. "You've been telling me that for seven years."

"Yes, well," she said, "it's looking particularly bedraggled tonight. Are you alright?"

"Why do you care?"

She looked surprised for a minute. Then she stood up straight again and folded her arms across her chest.

"Alright, fine. Forget I said anything. Anyway, I have to be off. I'm meeting Colin at the bus station."

"You should be going with James."

"And you should keep your nose out of other people's business!"

"He _is_ my business," said Sirius, and Lily turned away and began to walk. "You'll marry him, I bet."

Lily turned around to face him again for one fleeting moment. "Potter's leaving at the end of summer," she said. "He's leaving Dittisham forever."

They shared a look, and they seemed to understand something substantial, and Sirius kicked the pedal on his bike and rode off in the opposite direction without another word.

* * *

He ended up outside the garage. It was still wide open at seven in the evening. The dance was to start at half past, and Sirius abandoned his bike outside and strode in in the hopes of finding James in there, picking up Bess for the night.

But it was empty. The radio was off, and there was no drilling, and Bess was gone, and James wasn't there, and Gideon and Fabian weren't anywhere around either. The lights were on though. A tyre and several tools lay scattered by a little Escort, and Sirius took them as signs of life as he wandered a little closer.

"Alright, Starshine?" came a teasing voice.

Sirius jumped and whirled round and found Gideon rubbing an oil-stained cloth over something small and metal.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked.

"I'm looking for James," Sirius told him.

Gideon shook his head and wandered over, setting the metal on the workbench with a thud and making a grab for another.

"James came by to pick up his car hours ago," he explained. "Haven't you seen him since?"

"I haven't seen him all day," Sirius answered, but that was nothing in comparison to Remus really. He hadn't seen Remus for four days.

"Well maybe you'll see him tomorrow," said Gideon in the tone of a patronizing parent. "I expect he'll be busy all of tonight. Why aren't you at the dance?"

"I don't have anyone to go with."

"Poor little marauder."

"Where's Fabian?"

"My brother is on a call-out in Kingswear. Just me tonight." He placed down the second piece of metal and gave Sirius a broad smile. "Between you and me, Black, it gets pretty lonely in here on my own."

He indicated the cold garage with open arms and Sirius gazed at the dark walls, the shadowy figures of the broken cars. He turned back to Gideon, who was still peering at him strangely. He'd ripped the sleeves off his t-shirt, and his arms were streaked with oil, and parts of his face too. He looked, for a moment, terribly rebellious, and Sirius was inclined to smile back.

"I'll keep you company if you like."

"Yeah? Well that's _very_ kind of you, Sirius." Gideon moved around him, their bare arms brushing, and reached under the workbench to drag out a near-full bottle of dark Blanton's whiskey. He shook it enticingly. "Want some?"

Sirius, who'd never drunk whiskey in his life, nodded. Gideon slid himself on to the work bench, clearing tools aside carelessly, and indicated for Sirius to join him. Then he took a long pull from the bottle, wiped the neck with a clean patch of his t-shirt, and passed it to Sirius.

The whiskey burned his tongue and throat and teeth and almost made him retch, and Gideon laughed and took it from him and drank deeply, as though proving something. When Sirius tried again, it didn't get any better. He drank until he began to feel sick, and never once enjoyed it, but became acutely aware of his surroundings, and how close Gideon had inched, and five minutes after half the bottle had been drained, Gideon's hand had somehow found its way into the front of Sirius's jeans.

And then they were kissing, and Gideon tasted of Blanton's and smoke and oil, and it was disgusting but also viciously exciting and city and not country. And then Sirius was on his back, and the forked end of a spanner was digging into him, and his clothes were gone and Gideon was hurting him, but beneath the pain was so much pleasure he didn't say a word, and he didn't say a word afterwards when Gideon was fastening his jeans and pulling out a packet of Embassy filters.

A cigarette was placed between Sirius's lips. Gideon lit it for him without question. Then he went back to the Escort and picked up a tool and resumed work on the tyre.

Sirius watched him for a while. The cigarette burned away at his knee, unsmoked. Then he suddenly lifted it and took the first, long drag, and nearly coughed but didn't. After years of relishing the smell of fresh smoke, he was disappointed by the dull, earthy taste. He stubbed the cigarette out on the workbench, and thought about Remus and how his eyes were like the forest, and if Mary from 13A would notice, and if she looked pretty tonight.

* * *

**20th July, 1985**

They stay the night, at James's insistence. Since Sirius and Peter live in London and Remus in Pembrokeshire, none of them argue. Sirius is given James's old room, which will soon be the nursery, and he goes in expecting football-patterned wallpaper and orange carpet, and finds blank walls and more stripped floorboards.

The Rolling Stones and Farrah Fawcett posters are gone, and the record player and the framed West Ham United football kit. He wanders over to the window and looks hopefully for the triumphant carving of _mischief managed_ in the sill, but finds plastic has concealed the marked wood, clean and white and clinical.

The bed's still here though. The carved wooden single bed, pushed up against the wall. He places his jacket down on the plain duvet and then sits beside it.

Outside the window the sky that was pink and orange and pretty accompanying their wine and cheese - yes, wine and cheese, James like wine and cheese now - is turning blue and streaky black. The summer birds, the nightjars and blackcaps, sing their final song of the evening. And then everything goes very, very still and quiet and if he closes his eyes it's almost like being back in his flat in London.

Then someone knocks on the door, and the illusion evaporates. He opens his eyes and tells them to come in.

Remus enters looking peaky and tired. He offers a sleepy smile, and Sirius automatically shifts on the bed to let him sit down. Remus does, curling up like a kid, back against the wall. The worn toes of his socks dip off the edge of the bed, and they're both too tall, too gangly and adult to curve around one another on a twin-sized bed now, and yet if they had a Hollies record it would almost feel like -

"You never wrote," Sirius says, without meaning to. "I wrote to you all the time."

"I wrote."

"For a year. At university. Then nothing."

Remus is quiet for a long time. "There was nothing I could write about."

"Nothing's happened to you in seven years?"

"Nothing I'm proud of," says Remus, turning to look into Sirius's face. "Nor that I wanted you to know. I assumed you were doing all of these wonderful things, you see."

Sirius clenches his jaw. He wants to feel indignant. He can muster nothing but tiredness from his longest day of summer.

"Assumed?" he echoes. "Didn't you read my letters?"

Remus hesitates, looking for all the world the eighteen-year-old, the fourteen-year-old, the twelve-year old Sirius remembers.

"Sometimes when you're going through a rough patch," he says slowly, "the last thing you want to be reminded of is the past. Especially when that past is..." He sighs. "But we're here now. Tell me now." A pause. "I'd like to know."

"What would you like to know?"

"When did you leave?"

"When you stopped writing. I thought, well, that's it. They're really not coming back." He gives a small, bitter laugh. "So I stopped waiting and went to London and got a job. I got on with things."

"I remember coming back for Christmas in second year. I went to your house, and the garage, and the sea, and the creek, and no one ever told me you'd left. I just had to... work it out."

"Brighton Pier," Sirius says softly, remembering. "What was university like?"

Remus glances at him and smiles. "Absolutely nothing like I expected it to be," he says, "but rather special, all the same."

"Did you meet anyone?"

"Yes. A girl. Dora." He pauses again. "I married her."

Sirius laughs when he hears this, and ignores the part of him that wants to be hurt.

"You got married?"

"As soon as we came out of university," Remus nods. "Lasted nine months."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, it was my fault. I did it to keep my mother happy."

"That sounds familiar."

Remus gives him a wry smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "You still remember, eh?"

"I remember everything, Remus." He turns and glances out at the sky again, and by now it's black, and the birds are silent, and all he can hear is the sea. "I remember that summer so vividly. It was so... _strange_. So much went on. It was like we'd been wasting the last seven years, and suddenly everything was thrown together like we were running out of time and we had to get it all done, and _everything_ happened and..." He pauses for a long time. "And then the three of you were gone, and it was like none of it ever did."

"We just grew up."

"Yeah," Sirius smiles, "that was it."

"And things were expected of us. University and jobs."

"And marriage."

"And marriage." Remus shrugs, weary and suddenly so very old. "I'm not like you, Sirius. You were always the one who did things differently."

"And you always did as you were told."

"Yes, well."

They slip back into silence, but Sirius soon breaks through it with a loud laugh.

"Why aren't we saying it?" he asks, an exhausted grin on his face.

"Saying what?"

"I was in love with you that summer."

Remus leans across and kisses him on the forehead.

* * *

At midnight, Sirius pads downstairs into the still house and slips out of the back door. His feet crunch on the grass grown cool, and he's reminded of nights spent sneaking back in.

He walks slowly out of Forest End, which is very quiet and gloomy and old, pulls his jacket tighter around him as he passes the sleeping sea. He makes it all the way to Peter's house, passes his garden by, and immerses himself in woodland.

It's ridiculous, coming here without a torch. He's suddenly scared for a moment, by the darkness and by his own stupidity. But the forest is not particularly thick, and parts of the floor are still lit by moonlight, and besides, he knows these woods like the back of his hand, from the back of his heart.

He makes it all the way to the creek. A starving rope still swings in the nightly summer breeze, and he gazes down at the angry rocks and the moss and the water and everything that to him, as a child, meant death. He sits on the edge and allows his feet to dangle over into nothingness, and allows himself to feel giddy and dangerous and free.

Feeling in his pocket, he pulls out the blunt red stanley knife. It sits heavy in his palm like a dead thing, useless and old. On a whim, he tosses it into the creek.

It does not fly, it falls, and he watches as the red drop is swallowed whole by the waters. Then he lies back, head on the childless ground, and stares up at the stars through the breaks in the trees, and at the moon, and hears the sea, and thinks that it all means something, and for a moment he is very wise and invincible again.

* * *

**12th July, 1971**

"Princes of these woods," James declared, but it was Moony who held out a hand to help Sirius to his feet.

He grinned at them all, at the three friends, musketeers, the lost boys, the merry men.

"Until we're kings," he declared. He took off into the woods, and his brothers followed.

_Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me_

_Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,_

_In the moon that is always rising,_

_Nor that riding to sleep_

_I should hear him fly with the high fields_

_And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land._

_Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,_

_Time held me green and dying_

_Though I sang in my chains like the sea._


End file.
